Did North Korea return Otto Warmbier because he was dying?

Hundreds paid tribute to Otto Warmbier, who died Monday afternoon, at Wyoming High School in Wyoming, Ohio. Warmbier had been imprisoned in North Korea since Jan. 2016, when he was 22. He returned last week to his family in a coma.
Carrie Cochran

Buy Photo

Signs are placed in a yard in Wyoming as the community prepared for the funeral of Otto Warmer, 22, at Wyoming High School.(Photo: The Enquirer/ Liz Dufour)Buy Photo

WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence officials suspect that North Korean officials finally released Cincinnati native Otto Warmbier last month because they realized he was dying and they did not want that to happen on their watch, according to President Trump’s national intelligence director.

“There's a very strong suspicion that, you know, they suddenly realized that … this guy was dying,” Dan Coats, the current director of national intelligence, told NBC in a recent interview. “It would send the wrong signal they didn't want to send around the world, and so they released him on that.”

Coats did not elaborate in the interview, saying he could not disclose classified intelligence when asked what intelligence officials had learned about the circumstances of Warmbier’s condition.

After being imprisoned by the North Korean government for 17 months, Warmbier was evacuated from that reclusive dictatorship — in a coma — on June 13. He was returned home to his family in Cincinnati, where he died less than a week later.

It’s not clear what caused Warmbier to fall into a coma. North Korean officials said Warmbier went into a coma after he developed a case of botulism and then took a sleeping pill.

His Cincinnati doctors said he apparently suffered “respiratory distress,” and the oxygen supply to the brain was cut off. Brain scans showed severe damage, but the cause of that damage remains a mystery.

Partly in response to Warmbier’s death, The Senate on Thursday approved legislation that will impose new sanctions on North Korea. The House has already passed the measure, so it will go to the president.

The North Korea penalties were added to a broader bill that will also target Russia and Iran. It’s not clear yet if President Trump will sign that bill.

“North Korea must face consequences for its nuclear weapons and missile testing program and its human rights abuses, including the despicable actions that took the life of Otto Warmbier,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who helped negotiation the sanctions legislation.

Otto Warmbier’s father, Fred Warmbier, did not respond to a voicemail or email seeking comment.